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05/05/2004 Archived Entry: "Former Negro Leagues players to be honored in summer ceremony"
By Michael Toeset
Jimmie Crutchfield never got his due.
But an anesthesiologist from Peoria, Ill., is trying to change that.
Jeremy Krock, a baseball fan whose driving force is a deep sense of familial commitment, last year journeyed to Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill., a suburb about 20 miles southwest of Chicago, to visit the gravesite of Crutchfield, a four-time All-Star outfielder in the Negro Leagues.
Krock – whose grandparents hailed from Ardmore, Mo., a tiny mining town that claimed Crutchfield as its most famous native son – had always heard tales of Crutchfield’s exploits on the baseball diamond. The 5-foot, 7-inch Crutchfield honed his skills in Ardmore and nearby Moberly before striking out for the Negro Leagues in 1930, a time when blacks were banned from Major League Baseball. The fleet-footed defensive whiz did his hometown proud, sporting a near-.300 batting average over his 16-year career.
Through a chance occurrence while at the “Baseball As America” exhibit in Chicago, Krock learned that Crutchfield was buried in Alsip. Wanting to learn more about the player whom he heard so much about in his youth, Krock made the trip to Burr Oak, a cemetery home to African-American luminaries such as Emmett Till, the teen whose death helped spark the civil rights movement; blues legends Willie Dixon, Otis Spann and Dinah Washington; Chicago Defender founder Robert S. Abbott; and fellow Negro Leagues player Bingo DeMoss.
But what Krock found at the cemetery was disheartening: A baseball star who is ranked by Bill James in the “New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract” as the seventh best center fielder in Negro Leagues history had been forgotten. His gravesite wasn’t marked with so much as a name. “Mr. Crutchfield has a family plot; he’s buried next to his wife (Julia). But it wasn’t marked. We found it in the snow by pacing it off and measuring,” Krock said.
As Crutchfield was overlooked in life by his white baseball-playing counterparts, so he had been overlooked in death.
Krock felt he had to do something to right this inequity. “I’m not used to unmarked graves,” Krock said. “That’s not how my family was.”
So he started a campaign that began with one simple letter. “I just wrote a letter because my grandparents were from the same town (as Crutchfield), and it set off a string of events.” That letter was to the Negro League Committee of the Society of American Baseball Research (best known as SABR).
That campaign gained momentum over the coming months, driven by baseball fans’ interest in seeing a baseball legend earn the recognition he deserved. Soon, money started pouring in – from SABR members all across the United States, from former ballplayers and even from former major league commissioner Fay Vincent. People who had known the affable Crutchfield joined the effort, and soon enough money was raised to purchase a plaque for Crutchfield’s gravesite: A marker similar to those that pay tribute to players in the Baseball Hall of Fame. The 60-by-16 bronze marker will bear an image of Crutchfield’s face, pertinent information about his life and baseball career and, most importantly, his name.
But Krock’s campaign hadn’t yet run its course. To his amazement, he was informed by the cemetery that another Negro Leagues player was buried at Burr Oak in an unmarked grave: John Donaldson, one of the best left-handed pitchers in Negro Leagues history.
Donaldson, who had played in the early years of black baseball, is credited with once throwing three consecutive no-hitters, according to “The Biographical Encyclopedia of The Negro Baseball Leagues.” The southpaw who could seemingly strike out batters at will had died in 1970 in Chicago and was buried at Burr Oak. But he had been forgotten, too.
Donaldson’s story was told alongside that of Crutchfield’s in an article this past winter by Tom McNamee of the Chicago Sun-Times. McNamee’s story generated even more donations to Krock’s cause, and the money came flooding in, including a “generous” donation from the Chicago White Sox organization. “There was an outpouring of support,” Krock said. “It was very heartwarming.”
That support led to funds in excess of the $1,600 it would cost for Crutchfield’s marker, so Krock decided to use the money to purchase a similar marker for Donaldson.
But again Krock found what he describes as an “unusual story” continuing: Yet another Negro Leagues player called Burr Oak his final resting place, also in an unmarked grave. That man was James “Candy Jim” Taylor, one of five brothers who played in the Negro Leagues.
Best known as a third baseman in his time as a ballplayer, Taylor also earned accolades managing, including a stint with the American Giants of Chicago, where he died in 1948.
After sending in the orders for the markers for Crutchfield and Donaldson, Krock had some money left over and decided to use it for a marker for Taylor. Krock doesn’t have quite enough money for a marker as ornate as those for Crutchfield and Donaldson, so the Taylor tribute will be a toned-down version. But he, too, will finally be getting his due, Krock said.
A dedication ceremony at Burr Oak is scheduled for the unveiling of the markers, but no exact date has been pinned down. The dedication for Crutchfield was originally scheduled for March, but because of the additional grave markers and because of the work that goes into the monuments, the ceremony is tentatively set for July or August. “It was delayed, but it’s worth the wait,” Krock said.
For the dedication – with which the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City is helping – Krock plans to invite all those who donated to his cause, and the three Negro Leagues stars will get a send-off they deserved and likely never received.
Burr Oak and its parent company, Perpetua Inc., have been extremely helpful to the cause, Krok said, donating labor for the installation and the dedication, as well as donating a new marker for Crutchfield's wife.
Krock, meanwhile, also has been campaigning to raise funds for a Negro Leagues player buried in an unmarked grave in his hometown of Peoria: John “Steel Arm” Taylor, another member of the Taylor family. This Taylor, the second oldest of the baseball-playing clan, earned his engaging sobriquet when a reporter saw how fast he pitched and so dubbed him “Steel Arm Johnny,” according to “The Biographical Encyclopedia of The Negro Baseball Leagues.”
“With a name like ‘Steel Arm,’ you have to have a grave marker,” Krock said.
As for whether Krock will take his efforts outside of Illinois after the dedication, “Me personally, no. We’ll go through Burr Oak’s list and see if there are anymore in the cemetery. But then SABR will take up the topic.”
Spurred partially by Krock, SABR has decided to include unmarked graves on the agenda for its annual meeting, which is scheduled for July 15 to 18 in Cincinnati.
“Hopefully it will take on a nationwide effort,” Krock said. “That’s history lost forever.”
If you want to visit the cemetery:
Burr Oak Cemetery
4400 West 127th Street
Alsip, Ill.
(708) 239-0521
e-mail comments or question to mtoeset@baseballguru.com.
